Private Tales Tempting the Flames

Mara weighed the remnants of the handful of silver that had come from a farmer whose crop she saved from a wildland fire. There wasn’t much of it, but he’d been a poor man. She almost pushed off the reward, but the reality of her situation demanded some coin. Her boots were worn enough that she would have a hole or two soon, her clothes mended only by her poor needlework—clumsy hands—and her stomach ached for a regular supply of food. Crossing the plains was, in her opinion, miserable. The cold mountains or dense forest were far preferable.

The silver hadn’t taken her far. By the time she had new clothes and new boots, she only had two silver to rub together. It was a rough inn with questionable characters, but the price was right for a room, an icy bath, and suspicious but hot food. It was probably rat, but Mara didn’t care. Meat was meat, valuable to a traveler building muscle, as slight as she was.

Now the elf sat at a corner table, watching others drink too much and fall ill or aggressive. She had her mask pulled up over her face, green silk covering her from the bridge of her nose down to her collarbone. Hints of scarring showed ever so slightly beneath her left eye, but she was swift to correct it. She’d eaten in her room and was down just for amusement’s sake. She was around people so seldom that hearing voices, even if not directed at her, felt like a breath of fresh air.

Her wrapped and gloved hands rested on the table, ready for trouble to come her way as two men started riling each other up. One struck her as a bully and she was often a convenient target between the mask and being alone. She didn’t like having to talk people down or injure them, but sometimes there was no choice in the matter.

It was fine, though. Just one more challenge on her very, very long road.

Mara had learned a great deal since she’d left Falwood. She had never learned to love death. She’d come close to being forced to use her magic in defense, but conjuring a giant wall of fire between her and her would-be assailant had always been enough to make her way more trouble than she was worth.

She raised her hands when the food was brought over, both between the nausea and the fact that she refused to lower her mask. She had eaten earlier in her room, where no one could see the price of power uncontrolled without the protective veil. “No thank you,” she said sincerely apologetic.

Then the woman who had butchered the man, gruesomely and unapologetically, was approaching her table. Mara wasn’t a coward, but she doubted she could do much to even slow the woman down without burning the place to the ground, and she was trying to work on her control. Her raw power had increased by leaps and bounds since her exile, enough to create some truly incredible displays of raw, destructive fire worthy of many a tale. Unfortunately, they were still so incredibly draining that she was usually weak as a kitten after summoning one.

Mara’s only other weapon was a dagger, which she carried more for cutting things than stabbing people. It was currently sheathed in her new left boot, comfortably accommodated by the leatherworker’s hand. That wasn’t really an option either. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, but she also didn’t want to die in such horrifying fashion.

Those eyes were unsettling, not because of their color, but because of their calm. They seemed to show no distress and no remorse at what was done. Her mentor had always said, Eyes are windows to the soul. What did that say of this one?

“Can I help you?” Mara said finally, not giving voice to her thoughts. Her voice was soft, very elven in accent, and had a hint of rasp. The only other thing people sometimes remarked on, when they came close, was a faint smell of smoke clinging to her like a lover’s perfume.

Mara slapped the woman’s hand away from her face, anger rising like the uncoiling of a serpent. “Do I pry into your every habit or history? Whatever I am, you have earned less than no trust to inquire,” she said acidly. “You will find that I am no friend to those who abuse me so.”

She stood up then, kicking her chair back away from Maywynn so she did not pass closer to the woman’s reach. She knew how to move, to evade. Some secrets were not for others to know. Even Seska she had only trusted with her hands, and that had been met with compassion and offer of healing. This was a world away from that.

Mara hated people who had to pick at the threads of her past without so much as a courtesy. They didn’t actually care about her or anything they uncovered. They just wanted to see her writhe in pain and shame with an abandon that even her village would have found distasteful.

This is what you get for thinking you could trust in the goodness of people, she reflected, blinking away a few tears as she stepped outside. Why was that so much to ask for?

Just in case the woman followed her out, she concentrated for a moment. Soon the power was building in her like an inferno locked in a furnace, carefully contained. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, but she didn’t want to die and she didn’t want anyone touching her face now or ever.

Mara did not respond to the extended hand with a shake. She had no intention of giving the woman access to tear the bindings off her hands. She still could see no genuine seeking for forgiveness and visions of gruesome death were playing almost incessantly in her mind.

The woman clearly wanted something, or else she wouldn’t pursued. The hunger of magic wanted to pulse through her veins with her blood, but she quashed it. That would come later, when this one decided to attack.

“What do you want?” Mara said with a sharpness not usually in her character. The threat of revealing her deepest shame on a whim had earned more than simple anger.

Mara couldn’t bring herself to feel afraid. Instead, the anger burned at the center of her chest like an inferno, pouring through her bones, devouring her alive. It was trying to pull her magic from her. Choke it, the fire roared. Burn it. Burn it all.

Flames exploded out from Mara’s body, the white hot heat enough to burn away everything within twenty feet of her. It raged like a thing alive, its manifesting head devouring the tentacles they would drain some of the magic, but the heat was so intense that elemental fury would damage them, force them away from Mara. The fire was enough to raise blisters on Maywynn’s skin, if she was smart enough to step back and avoid third degree burns.

The fire howled and swirled, large enough that it created its own wind. It started to spread, to devour plants around it, burning the ground to ash. It needed more, wanted more, was so hungry.

Ironically, the tentacles had given it fuel, just as it had taken from her. The fire devoured her stolen life essence as the destruction spread and spread, threatening to consume the inn. Only Mara’s control saved it, pushing the flame towards the woman who had given no reason to do anything but hate.

At the center, Mara screamed without a sound to be heard over the infernal roar of her creation. Her hands and face exploded into agony, as if she had been burned anew, and her vitality trickled away, feeding the monstrosity.

Every demon she had pushed her harder, faster. She was strong enough to maintain this for much longer than she had in the past.

Again the flames seemed to sing to her, their power coursing though her blood and burning away her heart. Let go. Let go and we will purge. Let go and we will burn.

Mara shook her head even as the tears rolled down her face. “Never again.”

Mara pulled the fire back changing it from a column to just a form like hers. It required an immense amount of power to draw fire back after letting it rage. Wrapped in her protective shell of fire, Mara felt the creeping drain. She could restrain it, yes, but that was more difficult and draining. Her element wanted to live more than any other.

“Does this please you or do I remain weak and pathetic?” It was more the fire speaking than Mara hungry and raging. The elf formed its core , lending the voice an air of contempt. “You speak of my history if you know it, but let us have a perfect understanding. You know nothing of me. My pain is my own, my suffering, my shame; my strength. Yes, the kindness of strangers has taught me the world is to be protected, a sentiment it seems you do not possess. You strove to rip away what makes me feel normal, able to interact with others. You wanted my secrets? Here they are!”

Mara snuffed the flames, even as it felt like she was ripping away part of herself. She swayed for a moment, vision edged in black. She dried her tears with her sleeves. “I’m not you,” she said as calmly as she could, voice barely steady. “I don’t murder someone just because they wronged me, tried to kill me. And I don’t let the bitterness of my past define my future. Maybe I’ll be hated, maybe I’ll be shunned, maybe I’ll always be an outsider. That doesn’t mean I’m going to turn my back on the world and abuse it. Stay here.”

Mara stepped back in the inn, ignoring the white-faced patrons. She knew it had been a big fire. Her vision swam as she took the stairs up to her room two at a time, nearly falling. She retrieved her pack and headed out the door. Maywynn was in no condition to go anywhere, so Mara wasn’t worried about her limping off. She pulled out a handful of jars and rolls of fresh bandages. It meant she would be in her own pain and her own scars would blister or tear, but some pain was better than Maywynn enduring this untreated.

She rolled up the charred remnants of sleeve to reveal the burns beneath. Most of it was just blistered flesh, but there was some slight charring. Mara opened the first salve and applied it carefully to the arm of the woman who had tried to kill her. Immediately, there was cool relief as the anesthetic properties soothed everything and stopped the pain. The problem with second-degree burns was that they were more easily felt. Wounds as severe as Mara’s hadn’t been felt at all, burning past every nerve in her hands.

Mara said nothing as she worked, adding the other ointments. Some would rapidly increase the rate of healing, others eased the redness on first degree burns and offered a less potent relief. She used a green, strong smelling one to treat the inside of the bandage before wrapping it tightly around the woman’s arm.

“The compression will help,” she said brusquely. “I’ve treated the bandage, so the wounds won’t stick to it. Nothing’s worse than that.” She tapped the largest jar. “Vaeth. It’s an anesthetic and prevents infection.” She tapped the next, each one in turn. “Ayva speeds healing on serious burns. Chaldyn soothes smaller burns. It will help with the blistering when it starts to heal more. And this one is Melath, which keeps bandages from sticking. You want to keep the bandages wrapped tightly, it helps. Change them every day, but don’t wash the wounds. Trust that the medicine will look after you. Here is all the gauze and medicine I possess.” Mara’s gauze was wrapped carefully in wax paper. She set it beside the jars. “Since you hate me now, I’ll be leaving before you try to kill me again.”

Mara stood up and brushed her hands on her thighs, leaving streaks of ointment. Then she grabbed her pack.

If the whole world was going to continue in this vein, her commitment to be better than the frightened, angry, hurting girl that had left Falwood would be much harder to keep to.